Juan Francisco Trevino Chavez, alias “Kiko” will be arraigned on October 11, 2016. Kiko is the nephew of Miguel Trevino and Omar Trevino, and is presumed to have moved into the premier leader position, after the arrests of his uncles in Coahuila and Nuevo Leon.

When his uncles were arrested a split occurred within the Los Zetas cartel. Kiko has led the “CDN” (cartel de noreste) and the splinter group is called “Vieja Escuela Z” (Old School Zetas)

He was arrested on September 28, in Baytown Texas, a city located on the gulf coast, about 25 miles from Houston.Rafael de la Garza and Hilda Morales are his defense attorneys.

Kiko is the son of the eldest Trevino brother, Juan Francisco Trevino, who was released two years ago after serving a 20 year sentence in the United States.

The younger Juan, is known to be a brutal leader, evident by the horrific violence that has plagued Tamaulipas since the clash of the two groups. His uncles kept him in check while they were at the helm, once he began as premier leader, grotesque killings and dismemberments returned and becoming the norm once again, much like when Heriberto Lazcano (Lazca) was alive and in charge of sicarios.

Another possible foto of Kiko

Kiko operated out of Nuevo Laredo Tamaulipas, and Coahuila. CDN still remains prominent in the state of Coahuila, known as the Zetas “home state”, since their split from CDG. Zetas have been allowed to operate freely in the state thanks to pay offs to police and state politicos. One notorious former governor said to have been in collusion with Zetas is Humberto Moreira. Ironically, Lazca ordered the murder of Humberto’s son, Eduardo “Lalo” Moreira in Acuna, Coahuila. This was a settling of scores, as another Trevino nephew was killed by state police the day prior. Mantas were hung warning “nephew for nephew”. Because Humberto was no longer governor, his brother Rueben was and was blamed for deploying state police to Piedras Negras which ended in the death of the nephew. Hence “Nephew for Nephew”

U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. was assigned to the case for years. But he resigned on September 19th in the wake of a sexual misconduct case against him.

A judge was assigned to take over the case, that Judge is Robert Pitman, (left) who was previously the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas. While in that position he was the lead attorney for the U.S. in its Austin courtroom case against the Zetas, regarding the horse racing money laundering charges. Borderland Beat covered the entire case from the courtroom. Use your search bar to access the archive posts. Jose Trevino, another of Kiko’s uncles was one of the main targets in that case which involved half dozen defendants.

As judge, Pitman will have a much different role in this Zeta trial. One wonders if former Zeta leader “El Mamito”, Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar, might once again be a star witness for the prosecution. If so, it will become very interesting as it was in the first Zeta trial.